SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/21/2019
9:19 AM
My Worship Time Focus: “PT-1 “The
Believer’s Limited Privileges”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ephesians
5:16
Message of the
verse: “making the most of your
time, because the days are evil.”
Have you ever had a dream that you really wanted to make
happen only to lose your desire and commitment to make it happen? I can say that this has happened to me on
different times in my life and sometimes it causes distress in my life by not
doing what I set out to do. Paul is saying
in this verse that as believers we are to make the most of our time. John MacArthur writes “Paul did not here use chronos, the term for clock time, the continuous
time that is measured in hours, minutes, and seconds. He rather used kairos, which denotes a measured, allocated, fixed season or
epoch. The idea of a fixed period is
also seen in the use of the definite article in the Greek text , which refers
to the time, a concept often found in Scripture (cf. Ex. 9:5; 1 Pet.
1:17). God has set boundaries to our
lives, and our opportunity for service exists only within those
boundaries. It is significant that the
Bible speaks of such times being shortened, but never of their being
lengthened. A person may die or lose and
opportunity before the end of God’s time, but he has no reason to expect this
life of his opportunity to continue after the end of his predetermined time.”
God is sovereign and thus he has bounded our lives with
eternity, and God knows both the beginning and end of our time here on planet
earth. As believers we can achieve our
potential in His service only as we maximize the time that He has given to us.
In John MacArthur’s commentary he writes the following,
which to me is very interesting: “An ancient
Greek statue depicted a man with wings on his feet, a large lock on his hair on
the front of his head, and no hair at all on the back. Beneath was the inscription: ‘Who made thee? Lysippus made me. What is thy name? My name is Opportunity. Why hast thou wings on thy feet? That I may fly away swiftly. Why hast thou a great forelock? That men may size me when I come. Why art thou bald in back? That when I am going by, none can lay hold of
me.”
One more quote and I will finish this short SD. “Exagorazo
(‘making the most of’) has the basic meaning of buying, especially of buying
back or buying out. It was used of
buying a slave in order to set him free; thus the idea of redemption is implied
in this verse. We are to redeem, but up,
all the time that we have and devote it to the Lord. The Greek is in the middle voice, indicating
that we are to buy the time up for ourselves—for our own use but in the Lord’s
service.
“Paul pleads for us to make ‘the most of our time’
immediately after he pleads for us to walk wisely rather than foolishly. Outside of purposeful disobedience of God’s
Word, the most spiritually foolish thing a Christian can do is to waste time
and opportunity, to fritter away his life in trivia and in half-hearted service
of the Lord.
“Shakespeare wrote,
‘There is a
tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to
Fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
is bound in shallows and in miseries.
(Julius Caesar, 4.3.217)’”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: After reading the
different Greek terms in this short verse it is my desire even more to not
waste my time, but use it to serve the Lord in how He desires me to do so.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Continue to learn humility so that I can
serve the Lord more effectively.
Today’s quotation is from
William Penn: “If thou thinkest twice,
before thou speakest once, thou wilt speak twice the better for it.”
6/21/2019 10:03 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment